- State Art Gallery in Sopot
- From January 28, 2023
- Curator: Dorota Monkiewicz
In January 2023, viewers of the contemporary art scene and readers of the Polityka weekly will get to know the next, thirtieth winner of the Polityka Passport in the field of visual arts. The prize has been awarded continuously since 1993 by a group of art critics active in the media.
The anniversary exhibition, meanwhile, will present the work of all thirty winners of the award in two timelines – from the year of the award and from the present. “Polityka’s Passports” is the oldest art award for visual artists created after the 1989 breakthrough and for the next few years the only one. At the time of the culture wars of the transition period, Polityka’s gesture of appreciating contemporary art and honoring its creators was of extraordinary value. It was also in the pages of this weekly that the first honest debate took place in 1997 around Zbigniew Liber’s controversial work “Lego. Concentration Camp.” The presentation in all spaces of the State Art Gallery in Sopot of the award winners from three decades will be a broad overview of Polish art of the period – a record of the debates taking place at the time, changing visual trends and sensibilities. Inevitably, this review will concern not only the list of awarded artists, but also the changing line-ups on the side of the nominating critics and the reasons why selected attitudes in art were appreciated. Thus, it can be not only an exhibition on the history of recent Polish art, but also a contribution to reflection on the policy of reception and promotion of art in Poland after 1989.
